CAKE

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2 AShe was still thinking of him a year later when he walked into the bakery. “Let me guess. Wedding cake, buttercream icing for your wife’s birthday. Would you like another sample?” She flashed a teasing smile. Not flirting, just customer service, she told herself. He grinned in response, and with his hand on the countertop she saw the wedding band this time. She had noticed everything about him before—everything, except that. “I don’t need a sample, but...” He shuffled his feet and tapped the surface with restless fingers. “I didn’t catch your name last time.” She pointed to her nametag, pleased he asked. “Sable. That’s a pretty name. Do you bake as well, or do you just work the register?” “I do a little of everything. I can… bake it for you, if you’d like.” With patience, she worked on his wife’s cake—wedding cake, her favorite, too. Her hand shook as she measured out the almond extract, but she was careful to halt the tremor and splash exactly the right amount. She studied the oven while the heat made the batter bubble and fluff until it was light, airy and moist, a deep tan shade of delicious brown. “Please come back,” she murmured as he ducked out the door days later with his order in hand. His eyes slid over his shoulder to hers and stayed with her another year. The bakery went about its business, but she was changing—a chance meeting, the exchange of sweets, a return for more—changing like cake, which one couldn’t have and eat, too... She heard him in the lobby of the newly renovated bakery. “Hello.” He sounded surprised to see an unfamiliar face behind the register. “I’m looking to order a cake. Does Sable still work here?” In the back where Sable was, the cake she was icing quivered, bumped. She caught it before it could topple and stared at it with her icing covered fingertips half-way to her mouth, recalling his finger disappearing into his mouth that first day and the glint of a wedding band she hadn’t noticed until too late.
3 “Hey, Sable.” “Yes?” She hastily wiped her hand on an apron. “There’s a man asking for you out—” “Yes, I heard.” Sable’s serious face was dusted with flour or powdered sugar that clung to her eyelashes like snow. Or tears. She blinked and briskly strolled away from the feelings his asking for her inspired, but like butterflies, they chased her—fluttering in her stomach—all the way to the lobby where he waited for her. “May I help you?” At twenty-one, with a cool voice and the nuance of personality to ask polite questions to which she already knew the answers, Sable seemed complicated, sophisticated. His eyes darted over her face behind a squint, as if he had to place her. “You don’t remember me.” Disappointment colored his words. Her gaze dropped to the glossy gold band on his ring finger, left hand. It took her a second to manifest a smile. Amazing how hearts invent love and suffer breaks without any other stimulus than a yearning for what might be. She found a smile. She had to smile. Not flirting. He was paying for the renowned customer service of The Sweetest Piece. “Wedding cake. Her favorite.” “It’s for her birthday.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s probably foolish to keep doing this.” A different sigh this time, of regret. “I think it must be wonderful to be so loved. She’s a lucky woman.” “I was the lucky one. She died three years ago. You don’t know how hard it is to celebrate alone, remembering the things that kept me too busy to have time for cake…but, as a tribute to her, I make time now.” She swallowed. Three years. “My condolences,” she said sincerely. They locked eyes. “I’ve wanted to ask…Do you have a minute?”
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CAKE

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